Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

creative writing

Tuesday prompt: #33 2012

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Today you’ll practice settings. Choose two opposing settings, such as a beach and mountainous area.  Think of a specific place and don’t pick the obvious time of year. Winter on the Atlantic Seaboard leaves the beach looking far different than summer.  The waves on a particularly chilly day can actually become frozen mid-crest coming in to shore. It looks like an ice sculpture all along the beach edge thawing out as the ocean keeps rolling in, but the frozen crust of a frigid crest remains in place.  The sand crunches like broken glass, and the salt air stings your face.  As for mountains, the Cuyamaca Mountains in California are far different from the Blue Mountains of western Oregon which have a tint of blue gray vagueness and a sense of just being dropped in place without warning or preamble of foothills.  Pick a specific setting, detail it out and then switch to the other.  Flex your descriptive muscles as you change between your chosen dramatic scenes.

Tuesday prompt: #32 2012

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Design something that does not exist.  Here are some items to choose from.

  • a creature
  • a tool that can be used for painting
  • material for use as road surface
  • compact nutrient replacement food or drink
  • a better mouse trap (or moose trap)
  • transportation
  • a political faction
  • pet
  • truth serum/detector
  • medical treatment

Once you have selected what you are going to create, describe it being used as a routine item or concern in a character’s life.

Reference Advice: Grammar and Punctuation — the Bane and Benefit

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Every writer’s frustration is getting the grammar and punctuation
correct.  Without it, our readers can’t follow the road we have prepared
for them.  Even a grammarian/English teacher needs to check her work
regularly and review rules.  One of the best books for assisting both
the conscientious beginner and the experienced writer is a text that was
on the recommended list for a college class I took:  Diana Hacker’s A Writer’s Reference.  I have returned to college several times picking up
different certifications and degrees, but this is the best writing reference text I came
across over the years.

  • Looking to track down the list of
    the words most confused by writers? Check A Writer’s Reference.  
  • Want to
    understand the ins and outs of the semicolon vs the colon?  Check A
    Writer’s Reference    .  
  • Document design harassing you? Check A Writer’s
    Reference    .  
  • Have to give proper documentation for research you have
    done?  A Writer’s Reference supplies formats for MLA, APA, and CMS.  
  • Are
    you an ESL individual still dooking it out with prepositions and
    articles?  A Writer’s Reference has a section on that.  
  • Need more
    practice than is in the text? It also has an online presence with plenty
    of practice sets and explanations.

This is a compact
text, about 6 1/2 x 8 inches, held together by a comb binding, so it
travels well and lays flat.  Cost is a bit steep, ($50.00+ on average),
but grammar evolves quite slowly, so you have time to wear it out.  So
dictionary (or word book: see my previous post on spell friendly dictionaries, July 11, 2012), thesaurus, A Writer’s Reference, if you
write anything and care about writing well, have them in easy reach.

Tuesday prompt: #30 2012

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Today you will describe something in detail.  Pick something on your desk or think back on a favorite toy, your first car, the dinner your ordered at a favorite restaurant or the worst pizza you had at a bowling alley in some hokey town you passed through late one night.  Get deep into describing it.  Work it over and over, removing, adding, choosing precise wording.  Don’t stop until you have covered everything.  Then determine the focus and cut to the most profound of your imagery.

What do I want in the books that I read & write

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I am at the beginning of redrafting my second book in my Students of Jump series.  In the process, I started thinking about what it is I like about the books I like to read.  Knowing that will help me make sure my book has those qualities.  So what is it that holds my attention when I read a science fiction novel?

1. depth of humanity:  I like my characters to show their fears, joys, fellowship to other characters
2.  activity:  I don’t mind a lull especially after a heavy action or emotional scene, but I don’t want the lulls to last too long, and they must have purpose.
3.  well-developed characters that I can sympathize with even if I don’t like them.  I understand why they are doing what they are doing.
4. humor:  life always has moments of humor, and I want any stories I read to have it, too.  Silly moments, puns, laugh instead of cry, etc.
5.  emotional involvement: some catharsis for at least the main character
6. connection to other characters:  relationships that show the main character has family, friends, co-workers, enemies, pets.  I don’t like when they exist in isolation.  Everybody has backstory and forward reconnections to others
7.  I want to see (hear, smell, touch, taste) the environment, things, actions described.
8.  Sense of local: where are they, where are they going?
9.  the fiction of science: space travel, technology in every day life, the stuff that is related to but not of this contemporary time.
10. I like to get lost in the story: (I don’t mean the author dropped me off a cliff, and I have no notion of where the story is going and has gone).  I want time to go by that I didn’t notice because the story caught me up and carried me away.

After looking at my list, it is clear I have set myself up for a challenge.  I had better get onto it.