Posts Tagged ‘ Frank Darbe

A Writer on Any Given Sunday

Photo by Plush Design Studio on Unsplash

Wake, and …
Suspicion creeps down my neck.
Not a thinking day. No!
A lark day.
A play day.
A crawl back in bed and mess around day.
Chores, wait till tomorrow.
Hobbies, paint yourself.
Writers deserve days off.
Right?
No stress.
No worries.
Hakuna ma watch-u-ma-call-it
And all that jazz.
So what if …
I left a character
A breath from death
No clue how to live.
An alien shadow
Outside of time
Creeping through the pores in his skin.
I stopped yesterday, not knowing how to save him.
Should I kill him?
Why not?
Abel Ruse, not real.
Not breathing, hoping,
I know what color of underwear he wears.
I know he has the hots for Gaia,
And thinks he is in love.
Not old enough to know
Love from lust?
Or is there a difference.
And he’s changing.
Oh, my!
And the change scares him
More than the knife
Literally at his throat.
How can I desert someone
Living in my head for months
When I know his hopes, dreams,
That his frozen thought
“What color of panties does Gaia wear?”
Not knowing if he will ever know.
Because real people never know
Until the knife at their throat
Cuts.
And then, nothing…

Writer Zaide’s: Advice for Wayward Writers

Zaide Himself

My Main Character Dies Halfway Through the Novel. Can Lesser Conflicts Bring Adequate Tension to the Plot?

In Empire, Orson Scott Card wrote a novel where the POV character in the first half of the novel is shot in the head by an assassin and dies midway through the book. After his death, other characters carried the POV. The Death of the main character did not conclude the crises that started the novel.

In Card’s Novel, the plot was not solved by the death of the main character. It was a political thriller where other characters picked up the plot and conflicts. The novel did not hinge on the Main’s character’s conflicts.

Whatever your central conflict might be, it should work like a relay race, where the next person takes the baton and runs with it. Dealing with the death of the original main character became a subplot for his friends, wife, and children.

I do not think that “lesser conflicts” will work. Your readers bought into your main characters crises and conflicts. The death of the main character should be a failure in the novel’s core conflict that others must rise to face.

Writer’s Log 01.10.2019-0807

Sometimes, a writer must take the seat of their (gender neutral pronoun) pants firmly in hand and lift themselves by their belt loops. Yea, the metaphor could be improved, but this is about pantsing, writing from the seat of their pants, not the game where jocks (I was never one) jerk the pants of nerds (that’s me) down around their ankles. Lot’s of fun for observers, bullies, and jocks, loads of humiliation for nerds. Besides, I am not complete pantser. I know how this story ends and begins. I know the main characters, just a little hazy about everything in between.
Read my Novel “Shift.”

Slipped off that subject, I suppose. Well, for the morning I am working on my upcoming Novella, writing the first draft of a scene titled, “A Body Bag With a View.” More on the flip.

Writer’s Log – Supplemental 0839: Trying to decide in this Science Fiction Novella if I should just let the profanity rip, or if I should create a profane lingo.
Think I will go with my gut and create a lingo or jargon for profanity. Beta readers and editors can change my mind if they want to try.

Writer’s Log – Supplemental 0947: Wrote 357 words. Not bad, but not good either. I need to go do a load of laundry. Latter.

Writer’s Log – Supplemental 1153: After a load of laundry, I edited Chapter Eight Scene 1 of “The Jungian Gate.” The work continues.

Writer’s Log – Supplemental 1510: More editing on Jungian Gate, continued with the sequel.

Writer’s Log – Supplemental 1529: Finished Chapter 1 Scene 1 of the TJG’s sequel.