Categoría: How to write fiction

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How to write fiction

How to write fiction playing Scrabble

I have work to do. I want to watch the YT video… (Yeah, me too). The day doesn’t last 32 hours. No human life is long enough. But… what about playing when the children are making a ruckus? Or on line, while you keep yourself away from a virus. To be scared of something killing so many people in so many strange ways, in a century that has no idea about the Spanish flu’s mortality rate or full scale war; is not embarrassing. Just take it easy, keep calm and admit you’re afraid so you won’t take any rash uninformed decision.

So if you were to live somewhere with re-infection (I hope not in China) or that you have already started placing your finger on the clock’s biometric scan (Congraulations! Nonetheless, don’t greet anyone handshaking or kissing and go on with the mask’s use no matter how many around you have been vaccinated) or not currently working (company bankruptcy or whatever); that I suggest to play… It ain’t funny. Or attractive…

But before we depres each other anymore… why top lay Scrabble as an idea sparker?

  1. Human mind works better when it plays. Not when you chase after a problem’s solution. Or, why does Google give so much importance to the laboral ambiance? Because when we’re doing nothing, that’s when inspiration comes ringing the door. So help your brain to get rid of the cobwebs and play for a while. It is much wiser than betting y even much better than drinking (note I’m not coercing you to stop drinking). Playing creates endorphins, it helps you relate better with people and in general, it distracts you.
  2. You can play it “open dictionary” mode (hontoni honto). This is included in the rules if you’re so kind to check it. It is ideal to be used with children and learn words together. It is better than school readings… I have seen them. Some are more boring than the Newspaper.
  3. Look at the image. A bit like Alarma newspaper, a Mexican tabloid which expertise is to cover front pages in petty graphic depictions of blood and violence. Yet, I think it is a good one (no, humbleness wasn’t invited to my party). It can become an idea sparkler. Like when someone is to rap and they have to put together all the words to make up a song. And it is different to electronic digital idea sparklers cause you’ll remember the fun. It can be used to draw comics if instead of writing, you draw an story using the words that come out in the game.
  4. Playing is the only thing which keeps brains young and sexy.

Can you think some more reasons to play? Luke, subscribe, hate it, do whatever you want. Pasto kalo.

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How to write fiction

How to write fiction learning something new



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Have you ever left for the next day a mountain of unfolded laundry? I can tell you have. Too tired and vexed to think in your manuscript or script, abandoned in the digital world of your tablet.

Yeah, it is harsh to find time and even more difficult if you have a job, have kids at home, little time for yourself. Me, talking about writing proficiency will just add stress to the already stressful steep of being jobless or snowed under or being inconvenienced by the bosses about going to the office…

I think you snorted after reading the title of this entry. It doesn’t seem like a good idea at all, does it? Nonetheless, learning something new doesn’t have to take all day long. It doesn’t have to be a daily occurrence. Is just like Chuck Wendig says:

«An act of building, and in a way, an act of erosion, too — like a trickle of water licking a canyon into stone over time.»

If I (a lazy bump) could learn a language in ten years of frustrated repetition and relish; why are you so different from me? Theatre, crochet, cooking… All in a steady, slow but still steady, way. It can be something as simple as ten minutes in YouTube. I know, YT is the best place to waste time.. Yet, you can waste time learning ten minutes of something interesting. Such as History myths about women.

Which can after all, become material. No possibility can be oversighted. Cooking is one of those things you can learn like that. A new baking recipe, even if the youtuber is Chinese, can add spice to any likes or dislikes in any character’s bio. Or enrich whatever that reaches your china.

To learn something new can be a salvation board. A board that won’t allow you to listen to or pay attention to panic or any self confidence issue. The salvation of keeping oneself busy living. Plus, there are always free stuff somewhere.

You can always make the kids part of it in a family ritual of sorts and earn fifteen minutes of silence for yourself whilst everyone crochets or fifteen minutes of monstrous cacophony if you and them start singing —equally amused. Sometime I listened in a podcast of «The History Hour»[1], an interview to a woman who lived part of her childhood in a Japanese camp at the WWII. She said children thrive in the regularity of the daily activities. (I think that mostly, it was the unaltered continuity of events since children like to know that 10:30 is lunch time, 11:00 school time again and bed time 10:00 pm.  My nephew spent his first Covid quarantine here, asking every other hour “What’s next?” Whenever he obtained an answer, he would stop asking satisfied).

It might not eliminate the need to research when needed but learning something new, orbits you towards topics you really feel like including in your writing. So…Why not to have fun in the process? Remember, you’re already giving up a bunch of stuff by being a writer/drawer.

Like, subscribe, research, learn. What’s the new thing you feel like learning now?

[1] No idea which one was it.

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How to write fiction

How to write fiction with a naturalist’s lifestyle

There it is, small and black carrying a small crumb of cat’s dry food. Suddenly, they all come anf there’s a black moving line making up an antsy highway. You look at their lives, asking yourself if to brew a harsh war or let them live. However, your green army looks at you with a certain displeasure and… Of course, the dry food! So you decide to place the cat’s plate inside a bowl with water and place some chlorined cotton in their way.

Gerry Durrell said a naturalist —what minute did naturalists became biologists the Charles Linnaeus of the world? — never gets bored. Some of reason he had. Though that depends on how much you hate grass and love asphalt. There’s nothing deadliest boring that looking and looking again at some bug or plant you have already looked at and looked all over again without nothing to happen in appearance.

However, we aren’t here learning stuff about world’s bugs and relatives. You and I are chatting about the convenience of entering in possession of naturalist’s knowledge as material to tell or draw stories. And it doesn’t have to be underneath a cracking-stones-sun or the park. Either if we’re still safe bird boxed or already strolling around, we can become house bound naturalists.

It can be at home with our little company animal (no, I’m not talking about your wife or husband no matter how much them resemble a gorilla sometimes). Describe what the cat does. It yawns, scratches without notice, meows in more than one tone to speak to you. My kid Dai likes speeches (of which I can’t get a meow) and can use more tones than Chinese. Plus, cats become kids-parents-friends-siblings; all at the same time and without asking, so they can do an assortment of strange things. Like bringing untailed lizards or half dried lizards. Or… bring you a pair of mice to be raised[1]. You can tell a story about when was the last time Kitty said “I love you” or how you fought for the chicken on the kitchen table. Or the punch they gave you unaware when playing.

You don’t like cats and have a dog? Are you about to bite that pizza when Knine begs for a try?Can you resist its big aqueous eyes? If you own a dog I can bet you don’t. Equally difficult to ignore little Michi’s paws.

The Fighter fish of the fish bowl… How does it sleep like? Does it float like a slumb or does it fall on the bottom? How does it move its fins? Does the turtle living in the bathroom bite? Do you have spiders on your drapes?

Write or, draw. Even the smallest of pets has its own personality. Of course, if you work and work and never have time, we truly appreciate you staying away of having any baby who might miss you and end up high strung. Fish and insects might be your option then. Who doesn’t feel attracted to the fascinatingly disgusting eight legs of those furry creatures? …I can’t stand aracnophobia and every single creature bigger than two centimeters, legs included, had to be deported inside a cup. That nowadays I can see a black spider of about four centimeters doing her daily trip to the bathroom… I don’t want to think what’s hiding under the fabric in the closet…

And, what about those immobile, unflinching and dull green beings? There are tons of books where they are mentioned cause their folklore uses[2]. To know them can help to add spice to your story as potion ingredients (garlic smashed with a silver knife…not unless it is a superb cooking additive).  

If you happen to cook, you use herbs that for sure are already in a pot to make haste off its freshness. And if cooking books were to describe these plants as wines are described (woody, fruity, soft); the book might end up catching fire by itself. So sensual can these descriptions become. It tickles the end of the tongue and gums with a caress of breeze… peppermint. Plus, they are even more interesting than what they look like. Colours and textures that seem not to end ever.

To finish this, I’ll recommend Desmond Morris: Watch your dog, Watch your cat; that might probably be a bit obsolete but are very useful for starters and take away prejudices. Among The naturalist’s guide by guess who? (Right! Gerald Durrell). Besides Dangerous garden by David C. Stuart.

By the way, this last book is an essay about plants, the ways we relate to them and how we use those. It ain’t an erotic book at all. And I mention it only so you won’t end up disappointed by the title… as suggestive as it is and even more with the title they gave in Spanish El jardín de la tentación[3].

So like, subscribe, describe your own naturalist’s experience or take a stroll… Visit the duckies or squirrels in the park and come back to tell us what they do afterwards.

[1] I’m sorry to inform you that the mice died both very few days after the happening. I did what I could and cried the after match a lot so think whatever you want about me.

[2] Most of the mentioned uses are either poisonous or their effects haven’t being proved by science since no scientific feels like getting themselves into trouble by discarding; chamomile for example, as an effective way to alleviate swelling.

[3] The temptation garden as a direct translation.

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How to write fiction

How to write fiction, 10 ideas to unclogg the temporal writer’s block

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Panic not! And there’s panic already creeping up your leg since I had to go and open my big mouth… Easy. There are blog entries and videos to the brim about how to deal with writer’s block that for sure is the same for designers.

And it is prone to happen; that from time to time and every other fortnight we run out of ideas. Usually at the beginning; when we’re still in lack of those muscles that get fatty after a year of pumping them. The writer/designer/drawer/engineer’s muscle which knows where is the IDEA and even smells it before it comes by. Or “in the half of the book” crisis or the “now what do I write?” crisis. 

To us, the rookies (no matter how old we’re), it comes as being couch athletes. We can’t even get up to get ourselves a glass of water. O to go and write/design because anything else becomes more attractive than designing/writing/drawing/WORKING. No matter how hateful it is. Like taking an old t-shirt and clean around. I hate cleaning… but I clean when I should be writing!

So long, do you wanna know how to focus and do what you must instead of counting reasons? First, a disclaimer. This blog entry is a mix of ideas by cathy Birch (The creative writer’s workbook), mine and someone else somewhere. The thing is, I don’t remember which is which. Thus, authorship is confusing, opaque and…let’s stop my mumbling.

  1. GET YOUR ARSE OUT FROM YOUR CHAIR. Stop looking at the blank page (either digital or real) and get your brain to do something else. We tend to obviate the familiar stuff and thus we take it for granted. Such an action takes us to make mistakes. It is better to look at it again from some other angle.
  2. Break the routine and do your eye gym ten minutes’ thing. You are not writing anything anyways, therefore you can distract yourself with something good for you health.
  3. No, in this blog I won’t promote suicide. Physcal exercise is good for your body but I won’t recommend you to do aerobic stuff or to jump anytime your health forbids so. Ypu can always look up any virtual walkout and simulate walking there or to find a YouTube video without jumping. The most demanding and at the same time easy to do activity is yoga. That some postures take too much on back, neck and knees is something you need to reckon before trying them. Always check with your physician before taking any new exercise routine if you’re with any cardiac, knee, spine or cholesterol problem.
  4. Clean. Mind’s webs disappear too by cleaning in real life. A dust free space is cleaner and healthier.
  5. Do you have children? Play! For sure they have less of these “inner judge” inhibitions and much more ideas than you do. Besides, children have a very thorough logic and see black and white things. This can help to re-think what you know about a topic. Does it embarrass you? I don’t see why. You’re telling a story and playing is to have Guinea pigs to your advantage to try how good a story is.
  6. GO GET YOURSELF A COFFEE/TEA/COCOA MUG. Cathy Birch says it is better to have wathever you might need hand reach and never waste time looking them up. However… if you’re already wasting time watching the blank of space, why not to give your brain a break? It can give it some fresh oxygen and an environment switch. Right. Don’t overeat. You will feel extra heavy and sleepy, more like napping than like placing your fingers over the keyboard. You will get fat… So what? An over weighted body feels like that.  Over weighted on the knees and on the legs. Gravity is more difficult to deal with to move it and cholesterol makes your muscles to produce lactic acid even quicker. Indeed, your choice.
  7. Change location. Under the table, in some other room, the bathroom, anywhere but move yourself. Quite impossible if you do drawing or #D design but… you can always take a notebook somewhere else. Don’t complaint and better think: How can I go to work to other place? Anyways, to think over and over the problem isn’t going to solve it any faster when you’re stuck.
  8. Do you feel pressured to increase productivity? Remember, we have been through quarantine. Some say they will never pay attention to such measurement again but even if we weren’t under such settings; you’re not under dead threat. Do what you can. Don’t hope for anything else.  As alcoholices do.  A day at a time, a page at a time. Keep your calm.
  9. Go napping. Yur brain needs to sleep too.
  10. If all the previous fail… GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING. Sometimes a faulty set up of the idea causes the flow to be obstructed and the story might not reach anywhere. If such is the case, START ALL OVER AGAIN.

Up to here. Any additional idea you might have is cherised. ALONG comments. Like, suscribe, take a pause to recycle. Ciao, ciao.

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How to write fiction

How to write fiction without explaining…or maybe explaining

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How to write fiction without explaining…or maybe explaining

Are movie scripts written the same way as a novel? Is it similar to create a comic to write a play script? Are all media written the same way?

No…More or less. Novel, short stories, comics, movies, TV series, plays… We share this idea/will/purpose to tell something and doing it well. In an ENTERTAINING way and with a message. Something to keep our audience quiet, seated and enjoying. Add thinking (without them realizing).

To the most, it is that all these media follow this one and seemingly only rule:

“Show, don’t tell”.

Robert McKee is one of those whose opinion is never to explain anything neither to think our audience is even more stupid than us. That we must obviate certain information. To be very careful in showing, not exposing. A rule that ends up being strange and very difficult to comply by. Why ?

Let’s think together. Robert McKee talks about movie scripts not novels. What do movies do that novels don’t? Music, a camera which can be angled and tell us “Here is your heroe”, moving images. What do theatre plays have that comics don’t? Real time events, dialogues that can be used to hide information and a related stage limited budget…

Obvi..ous? So long you have never tried to write anything, it is. The moment you decide to write something and fulfil the expectation of showing, not telling; you start to question how much of it is really obvious.

Why does explaining become necessary in some cases?

Corry L. Lee, the author of “Empire. Revolution. Magic”, mentions in Terriblemindshow thatwriters are warned not to expose but to show (repeatedly); when sometimes she considers explaining necessary. How magic does work for example. Since whenever you’re trying to create something that hasn’t been invented yet; there’s no ail but to explain. Traditional magic? You take out the magic wand, say a few words and voilá; magic system guaranteed. But, what happens if magic happens because of a virus? You take a breath and explain how it works… Based upon your expertise level.

The more experienced you’re, the less you’ll have to explain anything cause you start to understand how to work out “SHOWING”. Showing is more taxing than explaining. Nonetheless, explaining also requires a certain level of ability. Not everyone can explain things in a comprehensible way. There are those whom being masters in Chemistry, have no idea how to explain why is it that water is a vital liquid.  Which is why if you’re barely starting, you might have to explain.

Plus, explanations have the quick perk of giving context quickly. Terry Pratchett goes on to explain how the light in the Discworld happens to work so we understand how is it that a broom can go fly faster than light[1]… in two or three lines. There’s stuff you can’t simply show. However, you can’t just large a long explanation.

In  “Katsuai Monster”, Narazaki Souta uses monologue to have us understand in less than a page why the main carácter has to “eat” bodily fluids (of all kind). Otherwise, she would have had to add more pages to show us. And adding pages is not precisely good whenever you’re page limited by format due to page imposition[2].

Explanations are sorta like arrows in the map saying “YOU ARE HERE” to guide the reader through the most confusing parts.

Recently, something happened about explanations to me. I had suppressed all explanations trying to “only show”. One of my friends told me the reading was confusing. And confusing is the one thing you can’t never afford when writing. Your writing has to be as clear as chicken broth since neither novels nor short stories have this “highlight” movies have. The one which shows you where is the important info…. To look down at reader’s intelligence is a world apart from being unclear about what we’re showing. 

And, it could just be that movies, TV series, theater and very recently, digital comics; have music. Music is an ace under the sleeve to manipulate feelings. Robert Mckee oversees this fact. A more or less well planned scene can become a huge bomb just because of good music. I mean, imagine Shark without the tuntuntun tuntutun… The sound is more than enough to get goosebumps. And saves you from explaining. But books can’t have music… Fortunately!

We need to be clever when reading writing manuals such as this one. Like, share, subscribe, etc.

[1] Being concise, dawn’s light.

[2] A way to match pages into an offset plate’s arrangement. Being offset a traditional printing system which requires a bigger amount of products being printed than the ones digital printing requires.

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How to write fiction

How to write fiction reading or watching news

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Why to believe a little bit in news? Or why not to?

Well, maybe this entry blog’s opening will shock you. Since I believe it ain’t usual for you to distrust automatically news the way we do so in the rest of America. And by that America, I mean the rest of the continent where English is not spoken (including Brazil).

Why might it shock you? Cause you see journalists as… annoying but necessary or even useful people who pursue the truth. What about Deep Throat?  Unlike us, who know journalism goes a little into uncertain places where fiction is more plausible and probable than the truth. Or truth is not allowed.

So, I’d like to change the question to something like: Why to believe news go into fiction domain… a little?

A new black hole has been discovered…The WhatssApp developer is an Indian guy who wants to warn us about the dangers of the app becoming a payment due thing… News can be both important and relevant or simple tricky and difficult to ascertain as veritable. Or trustable.

Why? Because it is kind of impossible to have the time to chase anyone and ask them if whatever it is said, they said is true. Neither if Vanesa Paradis this or that. For one, the gorillas protecting the person will not be kind enough for you to get recklessly close to ask (probably your ass might end up a bit wounded on the asphalt if you decide to do so). And two, this business of being nosy enough to wander around public waste fillers; to corroborate if waste paper does really match the Green Peace report… It takes too much time to even try (not to say dry cleaning).

Adding to it that journalists are paid. It is their job[1] to stand on their feet for hours and hours in front of doors. Or they’re paid travel expenses (if they get the great long distance gig). That’s how we can decide to trust or not trust news according the source and the media.  

Indeed, this entry’s goal is not to discuss if the Bird app is trustworthy or not and if this or that reporter have gone wild with political attachments and fact invention. The goal is to show you why reading the news is actually any good for fiction.

How does reading or watching news help to write fiction?

Simple. News can be the spark to start the fire. You can use them as facts to give ambiance and verisimilitude to your writing.  No single story is original at all. Ideas are always born somewhere else and news are stories. No matter how trustable or not, since people believe them.

They answer the 5 w’s of stories, don’t they? Who? Where? When? Why? What and how?

Andrea Camilleri was able to squeeze a whole novel out of a single newspaper article. To be accused by anyone who hadn’t read the warning: “this is fiction” with suing as a purpose cause he had dared to write about them!  As if he only had changed names to protect those guilty of charges.

Thereby, the stuff to plagiate. If not good enough to spark any ideas, it at least comes front as learning material. So much that Arturo Pérez Reverte and Gabriel García Márquez started as journalists. Serious and honest reporters (is there any out there for sure?) have to invent a bit of what they write since not everything comes out after research. They need to theorise and imagine. Any theory put together out of verifiable data is nothing but imagination until the opposite is proven. Right? And there are more than circumstantial proves. It isn’t often that even the most zealous tik toker can film EVERYTHING. No one, unless they go on Bogota brother, has a camera following them 24/7.

No place where happenings take place is so surrounded by CCTV to record everything 360° around the thing. And automatised recording for anything parallel taking place at the same time as our event hasn’t been invented… yet. Every article or STORY has data holes, directly or indirectly.

Holes that require imagination beaten into them to apply verification to trust it as truth or to refute their ideas. Journalists need to use their imagination most of the time. The same way authors NEED TO EXERCISE THEIR IMAGINATION DAILY AND NOT JUST TO RECREATE. ALSO TO REMEMBER.

Second holding. Journalists become terrific writers in order to say more in exactly the words fitting a column. They can afford the luxury of extra pages with repetitive or useless explanations.  There’s no way their article goes out… (well, papers aren’t printed that much now) if it has dialogue iterating the already told prose. That’s why it is worthy reading them, even if inspiration doesn’t spring out of it. To see the flux and economy of their stories.

Which takes us to something really funny. In Spanish, contests require a number of pages…. Scary number of pages. In English, the scary thing is the number of words any writer can type by the thousands without actual thinking. Whilst a journalist learns to summarise. Is better less than more? Chuck Wendig says yes (writing a lot of words).

Conclusion, start by telling what’s going on in your community. It might help with your chronological order and flux if you haven’t started to write yet. And if you already have, it will help with your descriptions.

Like, subscribe, share. Pasto kalo (be happy).

[1] A kind of writer whom could easily be included in fiction weaving.

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How to write fiction

5  reasons to write fiction learning a new language

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Yeah, undoubtedly to write in your mother tongue gives you the advantage of the local flavor. Unusual idioms and synch with everybody’s ideas instead of having a genius telling them what to do,… There should be marvelous phrases to salt pepper the tones and environments. I mean, narrative should be all this. Pompous, fat and overdressed words.

To write in your own language saves you taxing annoying downpaths and it is easier to memorize the grammar rules since you already learnt those at school. It is easier to learn new words or to stablish your own style.

So… why to learn a new language? Up to very little, there weren’t as much books about how to write fiction in Spanish. Most were manuals on grammar and spelling (spelling can be awfully more complicated in Spanish) It’s dwindled on editors to sell you courses as doors to the publishing world to become one of the published guys.  All for only 1500 euros. Isn’t that attractive? To be able to get yourself soaked in this kind of knowledge? And by published guy I mean anyone who writes.

(1) People write in English by reading to authors who write in English whilst people write in Spanish reading to people who write in Spanish. The same in French, Russian, Vietnamese.. Missing on the opportunity to read great books the way they were constructed around in their own languages. You can’t really notice how a plot works, unless you read the thing in the original language.  Wodehouse will never work in Spanish. Truly.

Do you think I read Cathy Birch, Chuck Wendig or Sarah Domet with Google translator? Nein[1]! Besides that, the best short story tellers were Russian. Aha.. now tell me you have Hemingway, Faulkner or Bradbury. Still, isn’t Chejov a must for any writer? Are Russian as good in Russian or even better? What the bloody heck do Russians say about their president, that’s not the same said in the western media? Have you noticed how translated poetry becomes graceless in your language?

Therefore, learning a new language is not a total waste of time. (2) Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentinian guy; learnt by himself…I don’t really know how many but he learnt them and he was a kicking ass writer. To have access to that stuff almost impossible to get outside its original language that can help build your authority. Of course, nowadays the fashionable browsers restricts searchs to the available stuff in your language, closing in and limiting what we have access to.

And yet (3), there’s nothing like browsing in another language cause you will land in the most unexpected stuff.

It can be used to give tone or mood (4) to characters or to whatever it is that they think about. Authors like Tolstoi or Elizabeth Gaskell quote in other languages and that’s interesting in a way more lasting than mere novelty.

Aren’t you convinced yet? (5) What about delaying or holding dementia? To speak a second or thir language helps you to be more open to new ideas. Besides, keeping your “small gray cells” active since it requires rewiring sinapses. Protecting your brain from being pigeon holed.

Milan Kundera explains in “The insufferable lightness of the being” that there are some words whose existence can only happen in a language and that language alone. To know these words, to be able to understand them, opens your creativity to new styles. Plus, writers are usually well versed in more than one language.

Can you imagine yourself in another language? Do you think it would be fun to write in a different tone? Dale like, suscríbete, odialo, tomálo. ¡Haz algo!

[1] No, I happen to be impervious to German. It doesn’t seem to like me at all. Russian feels a bit sympathetic. French amusedly shows off how much it is related to English. And Korean… well Korean is pretty much like a hard to get woman.

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How to write fiction

How to write fiction telling half truths or lying better

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—Grandma, why do you have those big ears?

—To listen better what people say around

—Grandma… why do you have that big mouth?

—To tell better lies when I tell you stories, my love

Let’s face the fact. To be a writer, particularly a fiction writer, is to lie…a little. I mean, you won’t become that despicable being whom lies to everybody. Maybe, and only maybe, you’ll come to become a brutally honest person in a total opposite reversal of the situation. It isn’t like you will tell people the national oil company that went bankrupt years ago needs to re-structure its debt or to promise to do things you won’t be able to.

To lie is to write fiction? Yes. And this only from a certain point of view (since looked at in a certain way it is lying). You will lie along the day…or better said: along your story. Your mission, were you to take it, is TO HAVE US BELIEVE. It comes with the craft and takes imagination as a requirement. It takes to tell the reader there’s a cow eating their rhododendrons (in spite of no cow or flowers being there) and have them to believe so.

To imagine is to see and project into someone else’s mind what’s not there; at least for Monte Wildhorn, the writer character in Magic of Belle Isle. Robert McKee says you have to achieve the common individual to throw away their disbelief and pay attention to you through identification or sympathy with the character. The moment they ask themselves “IS this even possible?”; your credibility is gone away. And with such credibility, sympathy does too.

You see…my brother and Big-Choma recommended me All you need is kill. An action manga with nice drawing and a suitable plot but…the damnest fine mistake of using the almost blind without spectacles character. How the bloody heck does she keeps the round half face covered glasses in place every single time she looks downwards?

Shortsighted as I am (terribly shortsighted) I know any plastic, either High-Index Plastic lenses or simple plastic or Aspheric lenses; takes some thickness related to its power. Anything above 10[1] dioptres is HEAVY. It is uncomfortable and it slips down your nose as soon as you look to the floor. I have had lenses crashing onto it because. Nothing has broken but still, they get scratched.  A perfect reason to avoid frames when you’re wearing 18 dioptres.

This tiny bity minuscule detail spoils plots for me. Why? Cause I know it is impossible. The empiric physics about lenses that I possess, tells me: the thicker the lens, the heavier it is. The bigger the frame, the bigger and heavier the thing becomes. Heavier means it is easier for it to fall.

Thus to lie convincingly, in Kinsey Millhone’s words (character from The crime alphabet[2]) you must: tell three quarters of the truth and add invention for the remaining quarter. Wending explains that you lead the reader by giving them three ascertainable facts and feed them a probable or possible yet to be ascertain fact. So its plausibility makes it believable.

Which takes us to a really interesting and also boring side of the fiction craft. RESEARCH. So, how is it that one lies by telling three quarters of a truth?

If you look at fiction as the creation of an unreal world, with characters that outside such world don’t exist and probable but nor real facts; we’re talking in a way of a lie. Essentially from the POV of the journalism. So to tell fiction is the same as lying… in a way.

For the time being, wash your hands going back home and touch your face the least possible, have alcohol gel handy. I know, we’re mask free! Still, Covid has been one of the most resilient and strange things out there. And people is still getting sick. This blog entry tough, is virus free. You can like it fearless of contagion…What am I saying? I would love this blog to infect the world! So like it, share, subscribe, whatever.

[1] I started wearing contacts 10 dioptres at 12… Along the usual resting glasses. From then on, the prescription went up to get settle in 18 or 19. Each and every single time I changed spectacles, I cursed the artifacts for they were heavy and cut my nose’s circulation; causing headaches. I mean, I’m an expert of sorts since without glasses I’m practically blind. And the sensible recommendation to minimize this is to choose smaller frames.

[2] I don’t open a quote since I’m using it directly from my memory and my memory (as human memories in general) is fallible. I don’t think myself able to remember what book of that series I read it so to start looking it up. I’ll greatly love if you know and share with me your knowledge.

Categorías
How to write fiction

How to write fiction making up questions to help yourself to create characters

silhouette photo of woman
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com

Characters…those little details. Ah, no, not details. Characters are the core of any story. What we can tell as minor details are all their tiny tics or ideas that have us go from the type to the individual. Let’s see how I tried and how you can go adding things you’re interested in, your friends, the things that matter to IG and that can be used to build up characters. So to say, let’s watch Seker the abstemious vampire who drinks tea with biscuits, being born.

  1. Car they might posses (in case of having one)

Seker would have a Lambourghini (his circumstances in the story wouldn’t allow him to possess nothing as a fact)… Unfortunately, I’m zero car oriented thus to name a brand was (at the moment) quite eloquent. The idea comes from the fact that Sue Grafton describes a lot Kinsey Millhone’s car. It ain’t bullshit the idea is Instagramable since there are a lot of people who like cars and car’s photos are very attractive.

  1. What do they clean their window shield with[1]?

Seker is quite proper and specially clean. He might have a special cabinet filled with micro fiber cloths in black, special waxes and detergents; intended for specific cases. Plus, he would vacuum the car every day and take it to the garage every six months.

  1. What would they do in case on an unexpected burial*?

In Crimson Relish, the vampires can’t touch plants or flowers with their bare hands. Seker might sent someone to buy them or he’d buy them in wax. Preferably, someone else from Arisa. He always has a black suit with black shirt and matching black tie and black shoes. This is another IG characteristic for people don’t use to take selfies of themselves in the cemetery but a particular pic in zoom with an stone angel behind…

  1. Were they to fall, would they feel embarrassed?

As a vampire, Seker has marvelous reflexes….except that his own mental state has him to fall or get hurt under pressure since he feels like a klutz. In case of forgetting this, it would be impossible. Given the case of stepping on a banana peel and falling –like in cartoons or old movies; his face would remain fixed whilst his inner self would have red ears. This is another IGable thing. Imagine your character on the floor! What about Tik Tok?

  1. Whom do they call in case of sickness?

Arisa. No one else. Seker didn’t arrive to this world as an introvert. It’s the shame and embarrassment of being a “monster” what stops him to become friends with others. And yes, vampires will never get sick unless they don’t eat well. Seker, at avoiding feeding blood, is usually dizzy and his immune system might get in shock by ingesting blood by accident.

  1. Where do they get their haircuts?

He doesn’t need to. His hair will always be the same shape and length.

  1. Undies’ brand

Black. Armani or Boss. Medium size. The same way Arisa would buy a three cotton package or micro fiber together with a sports’ bra

  1. Do they cook?

In lieu of my great inability to cook decently, I’d like all my characters cook well. Seker could…if he had to. Unlike Arisa and Nineveh, whom can just sit in front of the food. More IG. Photos of what we all do. What did I eat today?

  1. What kind of music can you listen in their scenes?

Classic. Handel or Strauss plus a flash light of Stripped by Depeche Mode.

  1. Can they sing?

Seker is so good at nullifying musicality, he is so proper and stiff that fun is out from his ammo.

  1. Playlist?

I have recently met a girl whom creates playlists for her characters. Big-Choma puts together a list with the songs he listens to among the year… Music is something almost vital to our lives and can also be published in the Stories of IG. Seker would have Bach and Mozart in his playlist, besides Nick Cavendish.

  1. Photograph of their bookshelves?

Nothing more sexy than peeking in someone else’s bookshelves. And book pics are popular. ¿Which are the favourite books of the character? Seker is fan of Paradise Lost by Milton.

  1. What’s in their garden?

Truly beautiful and slightly toxic foxgloves? Adelfa? Tomatoes and roses. More to sell in IG, potos of the garden. Seker loves sunflowers.

  1. Smartphone

Nothing more tell-tale tan an i-phone…Overpriced and snob or super chic. Seker owns a Galaxy. He doesn’t trust anything that doesn’t have anything in common to other brands.

As you can see, the details which make a character to be an individual; can be so different that you might find Macma biscuits side by side with the corner stand tacos plus Trueno undies. Criticise, share, have a nice time, subscribe, comment. Etc. I don’t think that my secret ambition for you to use this nonsensical questions would become true, unless you help a little.

*[1] Another Sue Grafton’s characteristic. I think most of them come from her books.

Categorías
How to write fiction

How to write fiction using drugs (namely addictive characters)

selective focus photo of pink tablets
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Drug…what’s a drug according to the not as almighty Merriam Webster[1]?

Drug. Noun. \ ˈdrəg  \ plural drugs


1a: a substance used as a medication or in the preparation of medication according to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

(1): a substance recognized in an official pharmacopoeia or formulary.

(2): a substance intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, prescription drugs: drugs for treating high blood pressure

(3): a substance other than food intended to affect the structure or function of the body

(4): a substance intended for use as a component of a medicine but not a device or a component, part, or accessory of a device

2: something and often an illegal substance that causes addiction, habituation (see HABITUATION sense 2b), or a marked change in consciousness

Now, deviating a bit (by not standard measures) from this accepted meaning; I’ll take Chuck Wendig’s idea about characters: the characters of a story are the drug in it that makes the story addictive.

Aha…did he mean I must sow poppies in the garden and pop out a bit of opium derivates to suffuse the pages on them or….I must entertain my own flowerpot with green weed to fill brownies? More or less. To tell the truth, there are a number of recipes to do so and my recipe book is not exactly in the chef’s amount of expertise and yet…We can review those I know with transforming your characters into real peyote as goal.

 All right. The same way, there are special mangas in the language learning section in book stores   —right, to learn Japanese!; there are some that show how to create characters… As a matter of fact, many of the traditional mangas  — include Korean and Chinese versions; portray a section of one or two pages depicting a profile section (the size may vary) with character’s blood type, s&m tendencies, birthday, favourite clothes, favourite food, if they like Line or any other messaging service. And this might be thought as creating a “type”. A simple perspective of individual… when a really addictive character requires even more detailing.

In Fitzgerald’s words (F. Scott):

“Begin with an individual and you find that you have created a type, begin with a type and you find that you have created—nothing.”

In my unathorised opinion, a character ends being something CONTRADICTORY AND AT THE SAME TIME very PREDICTABLE. It has to be someone you know so well, but so well you already know if they might go back to save their family instead escaping alone. It has to be someone you know who will take the sword and sail to conquer the Holy Land….

They’re like Shrek and onions. They have layers. According to Wendig, it is much better if they become more and more complex every time. The character might look like deceptively simple at the beginning. They can’t be perfect. Remember; if they’re perfect they’ll never get themselves in problems and without problems, there’s no conflict. Chuck Wendig, Libbie Hawker and Cathy Birch agree that the character has to have serious issues.

Even the most unmovable and seemingly perfect characters are not so. Unless you want to end up with a plot you can’t move anywhere towards and you see yourself in the need to finish it ASAP with an extra sweet happy ending that never solved the problems derived from your  original plot. Something I don’t like but can be very popular; specially for romantic stories. Such is the case of Eggnoid[2], a very popular webtoon at the moment; which sparked the problem of the notion to the right of eradicate the lives of human beings for the crime of destroying a planet and which main focus ends being the ultra handsome stud with a beautiful soul…who might never exist anywhere. Yet we need to drool over something, don’t we? No matter if the name is k-drama or romcom. Besides, diversity is something wonderful and can give birth to a great range of different plots that I don’t criticise it as evil or mediocre but as something that left me unsatisfied about solving the said problem.

Robert McKee stablishes the character as something that should evolve to keep our attention in order for the movie to stop being a summer screening and become a break from the usual patterns of storytelling. Just like Kinsye Millhone devours fast food inside a vocho (VW scarab) whose floor is more tossed wrappings than metal; and at the same time training her body to be able to run a life’s marathon. Seriously, Kinsye is all the time running away from the bad guys at the end of all her literary lives.   

So far, you and I know that to make a peyote, molly, snow, cocaine character we need to:

  1. Create contradiction so we can reveal its complexity along with the development of the plot
  2. Make them trickily simple

Make them predictable to the point we know them better than we know ourselves. Consequently, we know exactly what they will do. What we don’t know is what we (the author) are about to #$%”$%& in their lives.

[1] Strangely enough, Spanish has Royal Language Academy which regulates everything happening to Spanish whilst English doesn’t! Yet the recognized? Dictionary to dictate the fashionable use of words is the Oxford. Tough I could only access either the Oxford reference or the Merriam Webster. Hence…

[2] To analyse what you think is good as well as analyse what you consider a failure helps to develope your own style and improve your narrative skills.