This is one that I read from a writing advice book several years ago (I forget the name), and it’s a good one (but it can go wrong too, and I’ll explain how).
A lot of writing is emotional and “vibe-al”, so if the mood isn’t right – well then, that character that we were planning on killing off might just marry the main love interest, or the whole thing might turn into an expose on the private lives of apples.
So, maintaining the right mood is crucial to maintaining the proper flow of the story.
This one messed me up a bit too though, because it made me very inflexible. I had developed the habit of writing out at cafe’s – well, when a global pandemic strikes that can really disrupt your flow.
Even without a pandemic though, if you’re writing in public maybe somebody took that window seat that you really like, or the barista’s are out of the syrup that you always take in your coffee, or that spicy food you ate earlier is just really not sitting right with you and you have to keep packing everything up to use the public restroom.
So, keep your writing space special – but be flexible too. 😀
The client hadn’t specified what was in the package, just that Andres was not allowed to let it out of his sight.
“No, don’t even put it down,” the twitchy little man with the pencil thin mustache and the bony wringing fingers had ordered him. “Don’t ever let your fingers be off of it. Understand?”
If Andres had been a little less of a professional he would’ve laughed in the puny man’s face, but he was a professional. He was also a half-elf in mage territory and, by rights, half-elves were welcomed – pretty much anywhere. Mixed half-breeds they called him and his like. Everyone was happy to see the back of him, until they had a particularly dangerous package to deliver, then they shouted out to him joyously “Monsieur M’Andres! Monsieur M’Andres!” and showered him with more compliments and praise then their favorite beagle.
“You understand me, don’t you Monsieur M’Andres?”
“Perfectly, M’Lord,” Andres had bowed at the waist down to 90 degrees, “rest assured that your package shall not leave my hands until it has been most securely delivered to your respected recipient.”
That was all well and good to promise in the moment, but now Andres was in a bit of a bind. You see, it was all well and easy to keep your hands on the package when the carriages and trains ran on time, even easier when on your own horse or car, but when you were confronted by a group of disrespectful ogres in the rear-end of a dining car with no way out and no options then – well, what the client didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Andres dropped and kicked the brown paper package under the nearest seat just as the first ogres fist flew at his face.
“For Athanaaaaas!” the ogres shouted as one as they jumped him.
…
“Again, I really am terribly sorry about all of the blood. At least it matches the color of the upholstery though, am I right?”
The conductor gawped open mouthed at Andres as he stooped down to retrieve his clients little brown box from its ogre-blood free location. Not a drop of the green goo had stained the delicate brown paper. Not a bit of it had been scratched or marred in anyway.
“Oh,” Andres turned back to the conductor with conspirators grin, “and I’d appreciate it if you could keep quiet about the whole dropping the package thing, alright? My client was pretty explicit with his instructions.”
There were a million things that the conductor wanted to say, but none of them had had anything to do with the half-elf’s strange brown paper package. No, he was more worried about the fact that today had been his first day, he’d promised his wife that this job would be the one; this would be the one that lasted! But now, well, he wasn’t sure how trains ran their affairs, but most businesses frowned at dead customers. Especially on an employee’s first day.
Andres de-boarded that train at the next stop and switched to solo travel. ‘Woes come with foes’ his mother had always said and bodies usually attracted – well, more bodies. He wasn’t as eloquent with words as his mother had been.
Unfortunately, he’d had the bad luck of de-boarding at Chipsburg, the smallest, dullest, travel-free town in all the lands. Had he realized that Chipsburg was the next stop he would’ve waited to kill all of those ogres till a little later, so that he could’ve made his exit at a more palatable location. But, Chipsburg was where he found himself. A no horse, no car, no carriage, no boat, no wheel town.
Thankfully, Andres was fond of walking.
A couple of clicks as the raven flies or the horsefly dies Andres found himself at a most welcome bus stop. He plopped himself down on the ground beside the gangly sign and settled the box atop his knee.
What could it be, he wondered. What could a man such as he possibly prize so highly that he would hire a filthy half-breed to deliver it? It couldn’t be something all that precious or Andres would’ve never even been allowed to touch it, might Courier or no, much less be ordered to never remove even so much as a finger from it.
What could it be?
A diamond as big as a fist? No, it was much too light. The head of an enemy? No, there was no smell. A food item of some sort? No, not with this flimsy packaging. A – rare flower? Andres was not a very imaginative man, not when it came to anything other than his work, so he quickly gave up his curiosity and leaning back his head closed his eyes to a bit of sleep.
…
When Andres awoke night had severely fallen and wind had dramatically died. There was not a sound in the world to be heard – and not a mysteriously wrapped brown paper package in his hands.
It was gone.
The package was gone.
Andres leapt to his feet, his blade in his hand, when a sound gifted his ear. It was a musical sound, a heady sound, it was the sound of a street siren, a sound Andres had familiarized himself all too well with after a particularly well-paying job last spring. This was not just any street-siren.
“Julianna,” Andres called to the night as the notes grew more musical. A giddy little laugh bubbled in the air all around him, confusing his senses. Was she behind or before him? To his right or his left?
“Julianna, you know I have a restraining order against you, right?”
“Oh foo-ey,” the street siren puffed in his face, materializing out of thin air, her hair floating in the air as if she were underwater like her high-brow cousins. Her translucent skin was as iridescently beautiful as ever, her eyes just as clear and seductive as they always been, her touch on his cheek electric as before. Andres found himself slipping happily under her spell.
“You know, I’d never hurt you,” she whispered against his lips, her breath cool on his face. “Not fatally.”
“No,” he murmured, “but my client will if I don’t deliver his package on time.”
He pulled the package out from her back just as she pushed forward and kissed him. He could feel the familiar sensation of giving in, of letting her have everything, take everything, pull him down to the depths of her control.
“Julianna,” he breathed against her face, a small smirk on his lips as he pulled away, “if you powers didn’t work on me before, then what makes you think they would work on me now?”
Her face transformed, as it always did just before she tried to kill him, her nails turned to knives and her glowing skin to the dull gray of an eels. She reached for his throat as fast as a darting fish but the reflexes of a trained courier were faster. He clicked the button on his cuff and …
*EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*
Julianna disappeared in a huff, her beautiful song turned to agonized screeching at the piercing pitch of Andres’s wrist whistle.
“So long old gal,” Andres said, only a little sadly, just as the night carriage pulled up, the headless driver pausing only for the briefest of moments to allow Andres to board after depositing the last bit of silver that he had left.
It better be enough to get me to Pearberry, he thought to himself bitterly as he settled down on the black velvet cushions and, hugging the package tight, closed his eyes for more sleep.
…
It was enough.
Well, almost enough.
The headless coachmen stopped just a 10 minute walk outside of Pearberry, refusing to move again until Andres had fully vacated his convenience. Checking his timepiece against the sun Andres boasted to the grass and bugs around him.
“Ho ho, will you look at that! Just 30 minutes to drop-off time and I’ll be there in less then 20. Am I the best courier or what?”
The chipmunks in the field said nothing, but the mosquitos kissed Andres’s face in adoration – repeatedly.
Within 19 minutes Andres was stood outside of his recipient’s house, package tucked neatly under one arm as he rang the doorbell. A pretty young maid in a floral dress answered the door, and only closed it a little bit when she saw that it was a half-elf on her step. Nice girl.
“Can I help you?” she asked meekly, half hiding behind the frame even as she tentatively smiled politely.
“Package for you, Miss,” Andres smiled holding out the small brown paper covered box.
“Oh,” her face lit up. “Oh my goodness, thank you. Thank you so much!”
She took the box from him with trembling hands and opened it right there on the spot. Oh nice, Andres thought, now I’ll get to see what’s in it. Inside was a …
“Oh thank you, thank you,” the girl giggled and bounced, an enormous grin on her face.
“Not to be rude, but – what is it?”
“It’s sugar,” she said, holding out the plain small grocer container of sugar, “pure Fiddlesbrook sugar. Oh, I have been so longing for it. Thank you, thank you so much.”
And with that she closed the door and Andres was left alone to, once again, shake his head at the absurdity of his customers.
Wait, don’t click away yet! This is a really good genuine tip, I promise! Without this tip you won’t be able to accomplish the #1 writing rule.
I’m not saying ‘limit yourself’ as in ‘limit your imagination’ or ‘limit how good your are/can be’.
No.
I mean – Limit Yourself.
Give yourself a SET TIME.
A certain amount of pages.
A minimum (and maximum!) daily word count.
Set. A. Limit. (you can make it the sky if you want!)
Trust me, with this tip you will be able to achieve the #1 writing rule of WRITE EVERY DAY.
Cause, let’s face it – writing every day sounds easy enough (you know, even getting a few words down on the page is good work), but what about when we’re reeeeeally tired? Or, we’ve got too much laundry to do? Or the ideas just aren’t coming?
Well, if you LIMIT YOURSELF – telling yourself that you’ll only write for 20 minutes a day, or 1 page a day, or 500 words a day – then suddenly, that daunting task of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys) becomes a doable feat.
Even is you only write for 5 minutes, or a single sentence, that’s something and it keeps the momentum going so that when the muse strikes – it will strike a lot sooner and more often if you’ve kept up the daily habit.
Also though – limit yourself on stopping after reaching your maximum word count, page number, time limit. You’ll get a lot more done if you write a little something every day then if you burn out in one intense night (just like with working out, eating right, praying daily or any other habit).
So – let’s make it a HABIT and remember – WRITE DAILY – LIMIT YO’ SELF! 😉
I’m so sorry that I haven’t blogged in a while. In fact, I don’t know if this kind of a post is really any good at all, but I wanted to make sure to post something.
Life has been crazy busy!!
Crazy busy and then I had so many ideas for so many different things that I got a bit stuck haha. I guess then, this is me trying to get unstuck. Writing up a blogpost and posting it even if it’s just about nothing.
So, that will be my writing advice for the day – just write!
Sometimes things will feel too dry and sometimes the creative well will feel so full that, in both scenarios, putting words down just becomes impossible. I don’t know what it is, if someone has figured out what exactly it is about that blank page that is so daunting, then please tell me! I’d really love to know haha!
But anyways, back off of that tangent, and back to my point – just write. Write a poem, write a journal entry, write a short story, write a sentence, write a product description, write the back of a cereal box, write nonsense words, scribble on the page, punch the keyboard – write a rambling blogpost about writing. 😉
Hopefully, that will unstick the glue in your finger bones and crack off the rust on your brain cogs and the words will start to flow.
If I were to say that “Disney is just Shakespeare!” you’d be like, “I know, Lion King, duh.”
But I’m not just talking about The Lion King here.
I’m talking about the entirety of Disney, I’m talking about what makes a Disney film a Disney film, you know the thing that whenever there’s a major cliche moment people are like “What is this, a Disney film?”
That, my friends, is the Shakespearean Formula that I’m talking about, and today we’re going to talk about The Tempest.
In the Tempest we have the magical lead Prospero (a banished for-all-intents-and-purposes ‘good guy’, and the father of the female lead Miranda). Prospero makes me think of Merlin from Sword in the Stone or Mushu from Mulan (idk maybe you have a better disney comparison that I just can’t think of) – he is the main character, but in the Disney movie version it would ‘technically’ be Miranda that was the main character. Regardless, Prospero is the magical lead that was banished, that has a score to settle, and that is driving the plot.
The female lead Miranda (a beautiful innocent young maiden who’s never even seen a man before, aside from her father and a gargoyle like creature). Reminds me of Aurora from Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Belle, Cinderella and basically every Disney princess out there. She’s lovely, innocent and kind but also isolated away from everyone and everything until she meets Ferdinand.
The male lead Ferdinand (the handsome, kind, but not-too-deep-and-still-has-a-lot-to-learn prince). He reminds me of every classic Disney prince.
(We all agree that Prince Phillip is the best Disney prince, right? No need to even discuss!)
The villains and bewitched-by-the villains in Alonso (the king and father of Ferdinand and the bewitched one) Antonio (the evil brother of Prospero who’s just backstabbing people left and right) and Sebastian (the brother of Alonso who’s so ready to backstab). I mean – think of any Disney villain and boom these guys are it.
Then, we have the comical but diabolical but in-the-end-harmless characters in Caliban, Trinculo and Stephano (the gargoyle-like servant of the magical lead, and two drunks from the royal shipwreck). This trio provides much needed comic relief with a dash of danger – very similar to your eels from The Little Mermaid, or the hyenas from The Lion King, or Lucifer the cat and the evil stepsisters from Cinderella – all groups that were scary sure, but more funny then anything else and in the end none of their plans came to fruition.
And last, but not least, we have the literal fairy godmother character in Ariel (Prospero’s spirit helper that does Prospero’s bidding). He’s your Genie from Aladdin, your Fairy Godmother from Cinderella, your Grandmother Willow from Pocahontas, and so on and so on. Without him, the magic doesn’t get done, a lot of the comedy is lost, and the ‘hero’ of the story remains at the bottom.
It’s not just the characters though. It’s the structure too. It’s everything really, but I’m blanking on terms here.
To break it down, in The Tempest there’s a big event that happens (the storm), just like a lot of Disney movies, (Tarzan, Frozen, Pocahontas are just a few that start out with a big storm) and then after the wreck the Prince finds and falls in love with the Princess, the bad guys plot and scheme to get rid of their leaders and in the end the magical wizard saves the day and there’s a wedding.
The big scene that I noticed that made me go “Oh c’mon!” is there’s literally a ‘date scene’ for Miranda and Ferdinand where, after they’ve already gotten engaged after like 3 hours, they watch a musical performance put on by these magical creatures (just like Kiss the Girl, Can you feel the love tonight?, So this is Love, that one from Tangled with the lanterns on the water!) and they fall even more in love.
Anyway – I’m getting a little lost here – my point is, I think that that’s why Disney movies are so famous. Walt Disney copied the formula of one of the most famous playwrights of all time, William Shakespeare.
Wait a minute! Walt – William – is there a little similarity there? 😉 Oh, I think there is! (*cough* John Candy reference *cough*)
SNOKE THEORY (waaaaay past it’s expiration date, I know!)
I think my favorite thing about the sequel trilogy was all of the thought experiments that it gave me.
I mean, if it had been completely perfect then there would’ve been nothing for my writer brain to theorize about, pick apart, or flat-out re-write in my head.
As things stand – oh lordy, are there plenty of things to think about!
(I mean, c’mon, this scene was ridiculous!)
Here’s one that was a theory of mine from waaaay back in the day right after The Last Jedi came out, you know, back when things were iffy in the Star Wars world but nobody had yet witnessed the absolute mess that was The Rise of Skywalker, so people were still generally amicable.
The Last Jedi ended, as you may recall, with a shot of a little slave boy using the Force to call his broom to his hand before staring out at the stars, the writers wanting us to think ‘oh boy, things are changing around here!’. Well, haha, here’s what I have to say to that.
Rewind the film a little bit, and you remember that Kylo killed Snoke, his oppressive, giant, decaying master, to save Rey.
My theory, was that Snoke had discovered the secret of immortality and that Snoke was in fact Darth Plagueis the Wise. The secret to immortality, to not-dying, and the explanation for Snoke’s decaying body was – well, soul jumping.
I think, that Darth Plagueis had learned to soul jump and was jumping from body to body to body and at the end of The Last Jedi, when he got killed, his soul jumped into the body of that little slave boy, and now he was plotting revenge against Kylo, Rey and the galaxy. THAT was why the slave boy suddenly had the Force, even though he hadn’t had it earlier in the film when he’d met Rose and Finn. THAT was why he was looking out at the stars so seriously.
And then, instead of them basically doing a poorer version of that with Palpatine (“somehow – Palpatine returned.”) the third film would’ve seen our heroes having to battle with (and possibly kill/have to think about killing) a child. Not an evil child, but a child that was being possessed by Darth Plagueis. Oh, the drama that could’ve ensued!
Then, you could’ve gone into a whole ‘maybe Palpatine himself WAS Plagueis, maybe there had only ever been Plagueis, maybe Plagueis was the first ever Sith Lord and he was just constantly soul jumping from body to body, and that’s why there was only ever two sith – Plagueis and the body that would eventually BECOME Plagueis! And, if he was the first sith, then maybe Rey was the reincarnation of the first ever Jedi and that’s why she was so strong and important!’. By the way, I have so many thoughts about Rey. You can look forward to many more posts about her and my thoughts and theories (good and bad) on her character.
But basically, yeah, I think (and will always think) that that little slave boy at the end of The Last Jedi was/should’ve been Snoke, still alive, plotting more evil for the galaxies and coming for Reylo’s head.
It sounds pretty extreme but truly, if you’re ever working on a project and you’re stuck or you’re just not sure how to take it to the next level then – CUT WHAT YOU LOVE.
That doesn’t mean anything crazy or Hitchcock, not at all!
It means look at your work and take your favorite scene or character or even plot-point, the one that you keep re-reading, re-editing, re-working, re-living and – cut it.
Right out!
Pretend that it doesn’t exist and continue the story from that point on. If you’re really lucky, then when you’re going back through and editing everything, cleaning it all up and fine-tuning the rough spots you’ll be able to re-insert that favorite scene back into the story in an even better, more special, more beautiful way.
I did it. I was stuck, about 90 pages into my story and I just kept re-working those first 90 pages, fixing the spelling and the grammar and changing the locations around and the characters names, but never progressing any further.
Then, while I was mindlessly browsing the internet one day, I came across this bit of advice from Joss Whedon, whom you might know as the creator of the cult classic Firefly, or as the writer of the first Avengers film.
I was shocked and appalled at the thought of cutting my favorite scene, the part that I loved the most, that excited me and made me happy, out of my story, but I did it, and then suddenly the rest of the book flowed on its own out onto the page.
And, I was lucky enough to be able to go back and fit my favorite bits back in later. 🙂
So, if you’ve got a creative project that you’re stuck in, give it a try, cut what you love, and see what happens!
A Writers View 