Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

Tools for writing

Keep universal symbols in mind when you write

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white rose = purity, plastic = fake

Every writer should keep aware of their use of the symbols (mythologies, metaphors, colors, etc.) that subconsciously attract, repel and inform readers.  For instance, let’s use the age old feature of color.  Red denotes passion, rage, anger, love, disease, destruction, corruption, etc.  So if you put a woman in white, you could be providing a contrast or a condition.

  • The woman is corrupted but presents herself as pure.
  • The woman is pure
  • the woman is potentially pure, but in danger of being corrupted
  • etc.

Let’s examine red when it is combined with white.  Hawthorne did this with great effect in “Young Goodman Brown.”  Brown’s young wife wore pink ribbons.  Did the ribbons represent her inexperience (youth) or was it the fact that she was a wife (therefore no longer pure) so her once white symbols have passion/love diffused into them?  Or has she lost purity and been corrupted by the devil, and the symptom of this corruption is the pink ribbons in her hair.  Were her ribbons white, could the reader then assume she is innocent?  But her ribbons are pink, so has she been corrupted?  The journey of Young Goodman Brown is based on his concern over her purity.

These features add depth to the work.  So the writer must examine their work for those universal symbols that our readers will catch consciously or subconsciously, thus providing greater depth of characterization and perhaps conflict of character.

Symbols to consider:

  • names
  • color
  • occupations (general:  cabinet maker, hero, prince, clock maker)
  • hats
  • objects
  • shapes of features (narrow set eyes denote criminals, large eyes innocence)

Here is a simple example.  One of my students named two of her characters John and Sheela.  The student chose the names because she felt they were common everyday names and would place her characters with the working class.  John was concerned that his wife was cheating on him.  I pointed out to my student that the name John when combined with Sheela created a symbolic factor that played well with her plot.  John a term used for men who solicit sex in exchange for money combined with Sheela a term with conflicting mythological meaning regarding corruption (either as protection from devils or symbolic of sexual fertility) would lead the reader to assume the wife was in fact cheating on him and perhaps he was just as flawed because he viewed her as a means of sexual satisfaction.  The student was shocked she had chosen names that would have this effect.  She changed the name of the woman immediately. 

I used the name Miranda for one of my characters because I liked the added connotation of knowledge and wisdom that went with the name.  Vivian, an overly attentive mother, for its closeness to vivacious, and Misty, Miranda’s daughter, because of both her internal conflict over her relationship with her father and his conflict about being a single father.

What symbols have you made use of in your work?  What symbols have you seen used by other writers in the works you have read?

Different ways I limber up the writing muscle

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Since my time to write is extremely limited as well as seasonal, I have to be ready to write the moment opportunity arrives. In some ways, knowing that this is the only time I’ll write for the next week does make me write whether I am feeling it or not.  And summer is my writer’s holiday.  You can’t pry me away from the computer whether it’s flowing or not.  But I have found a few ways to make those first minutes writing worth pushing cobwebs aside.  I have several ways of limbering up.

  • I reread what I have written so far and hope to get pulled in by the bread crumbs I left behind the last time I closed the computer.  This does not always work as sometimes I am in a hurry and forget to leave the crumbs.
  • I lay down on the couch and tell myself to take a nap.  I think about the story and wait for the lights in my head to go out. As a sleeping technique, this never works.  My characters immediately sit up and start talking.  I start eavesdropping, and then off to the computer I slink hoping nobody notices.
  • I get on the treadmill (a real one, jeesh) and just think about what is going on in the current scene.  By the time the first ten minutes have gone by, I am dying to get off and start writing, but I have an unwritten contract that states I must remain on the treadmill the full twenty minutes.  That gets me my workout and a real desire to write.  Sometimes three scenes will unfold in front of me, and I do everything I can to hold on while I work from scene to scene.
  • I tell my daughter the problem.  She recommends a solution which causes me to explain why that just won’t work though I assure her it is a fine suggestion.  By the time I am done explaining, I know just what I need to write.  I hope I am not destroying her confidence.  Hmm, better talk to her about that one.
  • I send my best writing bud Marcy an email, usually vaguely worded.  After we toss a few clarifying comments back and forth, things start to rev up in the muse department.  Marcy’s great.
  • If these fail, or I forget to do them, I sit at the computer and say, “Just write whatever is falling out.  Something is bound to be useful.”  And that’s what I do.  Write, write, write until I am limber, and then I write a whole lot more.  This is the there is no-time-to-take-a-nap, ask another person, no-crumbs-left-behind approach.  Just sit down and type.  

Not one of these is the best of the bunch.  They all ultimately work for me.  In fact, this particular post relied entirely on the last technique.

How do you limber up?  Are you a consummate planner, a panster by practice, or do you fight with the wordsmith every time you sit down to work?  How do you make sure you pull the narrative out of the bag?

Researching Boston streets adds credibility to a time travel scene

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The third book in my series Students of Jump is in
redraft.  The addition of scenes to complete several jumps back in time
required some research.  My current endeavors involve determining which
streets were in existence in 1851 in Boston, whether or not they were paved
with “cobs” (round stones commonly annoying the farmers in those
parts) or setts (rectangular cut-granite stones) considered to be the better
street paver for use by horses, carriage wheels and pedestrians, and where the
major newspaper publishers were located.

I had originally assumed the
roads would be dirt, but after looking at pictures, I saw the streets clearly
indicated pavers.  So I had to find out
what kind and when they were in use. 
This is what I have learned so far.

Cobblestones were used but not throughout Boston and were
often replaced with the flat sett granite stone for ease of rolling carriage
wheels over, otherwise horses tripped and wheels broke more easily.
There were several papers in existence, the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald and the Daily Advertiser,
to name a few.  Fine, but when?  Well, the Globe
did not exist until the 1870’s, so that threw out that paper.  The Boston
Herald existed but had several names over the years and had the frequent
habit of purchasing other papers and incorporating their names into its
own.  But when and under what incarnation
was the name in 1851?  The Boston Herald
bought out the Daily Advertiser but not until the 1880s.  So that means I could use either the Herald
or the Advertiser for my purposes. 
But that hardly made things easy.  There was a section of town known as
newspaper row, but it was located in two different sites due to movement of
paper publishers over a period of years.  I finally
had to accept that there was no definitive address for either paper until the
latter part of the century.   So I settled
for Washington Street because it bisected both areas that went by the designation Newspaper Row.
I settled on the Daily Advertiser in the end (Sorry Boston Herald. I know you are still in
existence, but I needed to be sure there would be an advertisement of the
nature I wanted.  And the name sold me.)
I have been staring at maps of Boston from 1847 and 1950 using
magnifying glasses and my daughter to confirm my reading of the nearly
unreadable print to make decisions on how my characters are moving through the
streets to perform the task they must complete. 
The latter map made it possible to read the street names of the earlier
one.  (My mother loved books and had the
foresight to purchase an amazing Atlas printed in 1950, which was given to me
when I married.)  You would be surprised
how many times I have turned to it. 
(Save old atlases and dictionaries if you are a writer.  Words evolve and roads change names.  My classroom has two sets of dictionaries, a
brand new set and a 1980s set.  There are
times when my class is reading from an old text and that 1980s set comes in
handy even when the work is Middle English. The words are missing from the new set or have taken on new meanings
that don’t apply in the old texts.)
By the way, the most useful site turned out to be the South
Boston Historical pages.  The site had
several clear pictures labeled with useful information.  I even got a nice glance at the fashion of
the day for ladies and men as well as the building architecture, types of
wagons and carriages likely to be seen and some history.

Hours of research for a 1000 word scene.   I even spent my childhood in a suburb of Boston. The sound of the wind still stirs memories, so I have the feel of the place just not the details.  I was busy chasing a dachshund and riding my bike.

I wonder what the ratio of research is to writing.  Has anyone made a point of figuring this out.  Hmm, maybe I don’t want to know the answer to that question, or not until I finish the book.  But I am curious, so tell me if you have.

I’m off to research the trees in Boston Common in the 1850’s.  And I learned to write “Commons” with the “s” is incorrect.

Sometimes one needs a MacGuffin, at least to start with

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the sword in the graveyard
You know how there are words that we just love to say or write?  Some of my favorites are frikasee, mimsy, bailiwick, and conniption though they are rather hard to find a place for in my writing.  But one I have found usable is MacGuffin.  This word is a tool used in writing, and I  love the way it rolls off the tongue.   It’s fun and useful.  However,  the MacGuffin has earned some bad press.  Some writers for movies, novels, short stories use them simply to start the plot off and then completely leave them behind.  But when used properly, this tool can provide motivation for a character to get involved in some action and can still resurface where it can provide depth and deeper connections later. 
Mystery novels often use MacGuffins to embroil the characters in a
mystery.  Spy novels also can make use of the MacGuffin.  Basically the
character is chasing something that may not really exist:  the fountain
of youth, courage, grandpa’s missing will, microfilm with the schematics for a satellite laser beam.  Or they do find it, and it is not of value any more.  I was thinking about this word yesterday and realized I used a version of this tool in both the first and second books of my Students of Jump series. 
In the first book In Times Passed, Brent is searching for independence so he jumps into the past.  His desire to get away from
his mother’s manipulation instigate the decision.  But once he is there, this is no longer a
motivating feature of the actions that follow.  What started out important  becomes unimportant.  That is the nature of a MacGuffin.  (Of course, I plan to make use of this issue between Brent and his mother in a later work in the series.)
In the second book No-time Like the Present, Misty wants to face her father and demand he tell her why he
abandoned her.   When the opportunity arrives, she takes it.  But what motivates Misty initially is not a central feature
of her growth or the more important goals she really wants but didn’t think she could have: a relationship with her father and saving her
mother.  It is at best an excuse she gives
herself to see her father.  She claims to
have no interest in him, but is in fact obsessed with knowing him.  Escaping manipulation and high expectations or desiring one’s father explain why he made the choices he made are the MacGuffins which motivate them to take a step into a place they do not understand but need to go.
What MacGuffins have you identified in works you have read or works you have written

?

Personal experience (loss of a loved one) provided direction and depth

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Love is a foundation: loss a process

One of the main issues in the first two books of the series Students of Jump is loss of a loved one.  This is an area I have some experience in.  Though my original plot did not include a death, the events grew naturally out of the interaction of characters and circumstance.  My own mother died when I was a baby, and I was at first unaware of the effect it had on my father or myself. As I grew older, I realized he never allowed himself the time to adjust to losing his wife.  He buried himself in his work and in raising his children.  It was a new experience for him to be the sole parent of two small children. 

He shared a story with me about the first months he found himself caring for us.  He knew that my mother had always kept us fed and clean.  He had been guided on feeding us properly by the ladies in the neighborhood, and my father was always a good cook, but the requirements of keeping children clean was never addressed.

He bathed us night and day.  We were not particularly dirty children, both of us under two years old.  When he took us to our yearly check up, he asked the doctor if he was caring for us well, as he feared being gone during the working hours meant he could only bath us twice a day.  Our skin was a bit flakie, but the doctor set him straight relieving quite a bit of tension and reducing the bathing to a more manageable level, and our skin and hair returned to that shiny, moist quality inherent in healthy children.  When I had my own daughter and spoke to my father about her potty training not going well, he gave me just the information I needed to have a smooth process for my daughter.

Talking to and observing how my father dealt with his loss and my own later frustrations at not having my mother around during my teenage years helped when I worked through the changes my characters dealt with and their challenges dealing with loss.

What parts in the writing you have done is a reflection of your own experiences?

The Little Handbook of Narrative Frameworks is published!

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Narrative Frameworks

My newest book The Little Handbook of Narrative Frameworks for writing novels and stories is now available for download at Smashwords and will soon be available at B&N, Sony, Apple, and Amazon, along with a number of other distribution sites. 

The organization of a story is dependent upon its structure.  That is, of course, obvious, yet it can be overlooked so easily in the process of writing or reading.  But the conflict formation or the character development is essential to the story.  This handbook is about that unpinning, the structure that carries a story.

In addition to the examination of classic plot and character development, I have included worksheets after each framework for use in designing a story as well as for examining a story for its organization.  My intention was to create a resource book for reviewing and examining the structure of a narrative for design and understanding.  My hope is that writers and readers will find it a practical addition to their resource libraries.