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Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

What I’m (th)Inkingabout

Tuesday Prompt: #23 2012

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The wrought iron stairs twisted twice before reaching the top of the aged brick building, but that was not what made them interesting. What caught the eye was the woman below turning slowly in a white strapless wedding dress with flared hem, her graceful arms extended out, head thrown back and the videographer leaning out over the rusty twisted metal twenty feet above her, his heavy camera extended even further out on a cantilevering arm strapped to a brace mounted to his chest.  I wondered who would fall first, her dizzy with the arching spin or him unable to pull back if the rail were to give way or his balance was thrown off by a sudden flinch of the sagging bolts.

Which one fell or did something else occur?  Take it from there.

Revision, revision, revision

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Back to Lu Chi’s Wen Fu: The Art of Writing
In Chapter VII.  “The Key,” the last three stanzas are referring to searching out the best words and revising.

What wants to continue must not end;
   what has been fully stated is itself a conclusion.

However each sentence branches and spreads,
   it grows from a well-placed phrase.

Restrain verbosity, establish order;
otherwise, further and further revision. (lines 5-10)

The ideas in these stanzas are so important to completing a work.  A writer seeks precision, to make the “well-placed phrase.”  And when it is said well, the reader understands.  The difficulty comes in deciding if what is written met the demand.  I trust my instincts.  I have been working on an anthology (which I have mentioned in prior posts) and have been going through each story. Two stories continue to make me hesitate to include them, so I finally pulled them out of the work.  What is left is strong, but still in need of revision.  And so, I am off to “further and further” revise.

Tuesday Prompt: #22 2012

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Start with this dialogue:  “I can’t find it.”

Have only one character to start with.  He or she will respond to imagined comments made by someone else not really present.   Perhaps you will want someone to overhear this conversation, maybe the person imagined to be responding.  In any case, let the one character carry both sides of the conversation until you feel that the situation has been fleshed out.


Remember not to let your characters answer any questions directly unless the question is important.  See my post on 3/7/12 (How to write good dialogue) for more ways to make dialogue have a natural feel.

A writer’s platform: A scary propostion

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So I have been working on my “platform” (please grimace while saying this, cringe a little, then reset shoulders more firmly).  I have a Twitter (@LDarbyGibbs) account and an Indie Writer’s account, a Google+ something or other and a Facebook page (which I still have not figured out after three months of ownership.  It didn’t help that it changed format just when I was getting less nervous about what I should do with it.)  But Twitter is less overwhelming by far than any of them.  After all, a writer should be able to write a sentence or two on the fly.

My most difficult problem is friend requests.  I don’t get them often, but when I do, I have no idea how to respond.  Mostly I think, “Why do you want to be my friend?  What about me caught your attention?”  If I can look at their blog, profile or information, I’ll see if we have anything in common, or if I find them interesting.  But I don’t just say, “Sure, join the party.”

Follow me, I’ll follow you:  those just make me crazy.  It seems kind of like little kids collecting stickers.  My daughter, when she was little, loved to collect stickers. She would smile gleefully when she received one.  Stick it to something, didn’t matter what, or give it away to someone she liked just to see them smile, but she never asked about it again or searched out where she had stuck it.  Followers are like that if they are just returning a follow.  Sure, I want followers, but I want to earn them, not buy them.

Writer’s platform just coming into visibility

Where was I:  oh, yes, platform.  Mine is in the just-coming- into-visibility stage.  That is if it were a tangible thing, at this point, you would see a vague outline of wood planks, with darkened circular shapes, probably bolts, notable in pairs at the ends and about halfway along each plank.  I work to build solid stuff, but it’s not finished. So, invisible man kind-of-thing just starting to be made solid appearing, but not yet.  This blog is one of those planks, and it is one of two that appears like you could step on it and not fall through. My book is the other solid looking plank.  And see that one over there, off to the right at the top of this foundation?  That one is the anthology I am working on.  The last short story is getting fleshed out.  Then it is heavy duty revise and edit for the lot of them.  Maybe by late June, early July it will debut.  And one more plank will appear.  A person could lay a towel down and get suntanned perhaps.

Tuesday Prompt: #21 2012

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This time, find instrumental music that you can listen to, classical, new age, even 30 seconds of music with lyrics, so longs as those 30 seconds run before the lyrics do. Whatever you find, close your eyes and play it for 30 seconds to a minute.  Listen until you can see the scene it would do well to be the soundtrack for.  When you have that image firmly in mind, start writing.

Lu Chi’s Wen Fu

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When I was in college, one of the books a professor required we purchase was Lu Chi’s Wen Fu.  Just reading the introduction convinced me this was a book for me.   The book is written in poetry, but reads like a guide you climbed to the top of a mountain to sit with in silence, growing knowledgeable just through association.  Though it is geared toward the poet, any writer can gain insight from it.

“The poet stands at the center of the universe
   contemplating the enigma,

drawing sustenance
   from masterpieces of the past.  (“The Early Motion” lines 1-4)

Lu Chi’s Wen Fu

This simple book walks the writer through all the agonies of creation, the selection of the right word, bright epiphanies and the moments of satisfaction.  Frequently, it reminds the reader that contemplation and study of  master works is the road to writing well.  I remember reading this book and nodding in agreement with each line.  I also recall finding every time the professor brought this book into discussion in class that I knew what he was saying almost before the words left his mouth.  There was an instant connection to the professor’s words, this little book and my own understanding of the art of writing, however much a novice I was (and will always be as we are forever evolving in this craft).

If you are a writer, get this book.  Read it in small bits.  Breath it.  Contemplate it and then read the masters.  Then read the book again, whole, part, in sequence, out of order.  Grab snatches of it and return to it often.  Each reading is a new understanding, a new breath in writing.