Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

writing practice

Tuesday prompt: #11 2013

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Responding to the call to adventure

Write a few paragraphs using the opening steps of the heroic journey by introducing a character capable of heroic actions, though she or he may not feel capable of such things.  Supply a problem or other motivating situation for the character to accept a call to adventure.  The common enough character feels a need, desire or push to proceed on a journey that under normal circumstance would not be considered the norm among choices of action.  That is it.  If you need more detailed information follow this link to my explanation of the Heroic Journey narrative mode.

Tuesday prompt: #10 2013

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This is an exercise for plotting.  Below is a plot that contains a major flaw: the main character has no challenge to reaching her goal.  Replot the events so that the character still gets to the goal, but she doesn’t have an easy time of it.

  • Susie eats at the same diner each day without fail, ordering eggs, bacon, and hash browns.  Though she does not know the cook’s name, he always nods at her when he sees her head for a her favorite booth in the corner.  A short time later, her breakfast arrives.
  • Sam enters and takes the booth beside her own.  She sits looking in his direction over the two seat backs, he hers.
  • Each time she looks up, she finds herself looking into his eyes.  He smiles every time.
  • She hasn’t any ketchup at her table and asks him if he could pass her his.  He walks it over to her and waits for her to finish before returning to his own seat.
  • She eats every bite, pleased she didn’t have to do so without the ketchup.

(And you thought this was all about Susie and Sam.)

Now the goal is the ketchup.  Time to alter the plot so that she still gets the ketchup but the process is not easy.

Narrative Mode ~ #3 Coming of Age

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The Coming of Age format is often used for YA novels because the main character is often a young character, usually on the verge of coming to terms with the difficult realities of life.  It is also not unusual for the main character to be an adult, one with a rather innocent view of life.  A writer can certainly make numerous tweaks to this narrative mode, but below is a fairly standard plot.

  • The young character finds his/her current life is understandable and carries demands that can be managed.  There may be struggles, but these are challenges to be expected and he/she is prepared for them.
  • A sudden event changes everything.  This can come in the form of a death of a parent, the loss of economic stability, grave illness or injury, any major tragedy of which the child (or innocent adult) cannot negotiate easily.
  • This young person has personal strength and a strong sense of self and the rules of his society.  But these beliefs come into questions as he/she works through the rising difficulties.  People he counted on may fall short.  Rules long reliable may lose power.  Places always safe are not.  He/she must revise the solid set of values that have been a part of life for as long as he/she can remember.  Consider Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huckleberry has believed and followed the law of slavery.  He views slaves as a subgroup that are appropriately under the control of their slave owners.  As a result when he comes to know an adult slave he has always viewed as lacking intelligence and sensibilities, he must questions these recognized laws.  In fact, as he spends more time with Jim, he finds him a caring man, a substitute father, and unexpected life guide, limited only by opportunity and education. 
  • Negotiation of the often negative demands of the new order become a necessary action of the main character.  In some way, the character must come to terms and establish a new sense of ethics or hold the original ethics as inviolate.  Huck had to make a decision: live by the rules he has always accepted or proceed to break those rules knowing what the consequences will be.  He chooses to view Jim as a human deserving of the same rights he has, and he works to give Jim a chance to acquire those rights through getting him into non-slave territory.  He knows he is working against society and the laws of his group, and he accepts he will be punished for this.  He was guilty of treating Jim as less than human, but he has learned the true value of friendship and promises.  He has come of age.

Well, I am still thinking about what will be next week’s narrative mode.  I’ll let you know then.
The Little Handbook of Narrative Frameworks available on Smashwords and Amazon.

Tuesday prompt: #9 2013

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Regional stories are wrapped around the cultural, traditional, and environmental qualities of the area.  Often dialect is a feature, but not a requirement.  So work on a few paragraphs of a story that can only happen where you are.  Make it utterly dependent on the locale, can’t happen anywhere else but there.

Read Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” or Wolfe’s “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn” for example.

Tuesday prompt: #8 2013

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Pick out a room in your house or apartment that you would love to remodel.  Imagine the changes you would make.  What different furniture would you prefer, paint scheme, layout, window type?  Think about every detail: baseboard, electrical switches, trim around the doors, what is in the vase of flowers, scent. 

capture the details

When you have the vision clear in your mind, start writing it down.  Be as clear as you can with what the room looks like now and then blast away at it, always maintaining a steady sense of the place.  If necessary, keep your vantage point from one place in the room, i.e., the entrance from the front hall or a corner where most of the room is viewable, even a glimpse of other rooms to add contrast.  Most importantly, don’t let your reader get lost in the room. 

This could take a bit of time and writing. When you have it all, go back through and remove everything that is unnecessary to maintaining the overall look. Keep trimming until you have it down to a page of overall change, with enough close detail to set the effect of the room as down to the tiniest point, and enough general description that the room is not centered on details.  Sort of like matching your earrings or cufflinks to the dress or suit you are wearing. No piece sets the tone alone, it all works together.

Tuesday prompt: #7 2013

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Probably everybody has the sleeping dream of flying, usually without wings, airplane or other standard materials.  I know I once flew in a chair.  If I raised my legs straight out in front of me I went up, bending down them sent me to the ground.  I have flown in a car up and down incredible vertical runs. 

Your prompt, if you choose to accept it, is write your character into a flying experience.  Don’t worry about using conventional means to enable flight, just get them into the air somehow with at least some means of control, however rocky it might be.