Naylene Rondon's Blog: More Than Scribbles, page 11

Shooting Someone

Let’s get ready to kill people, fictional people.

Eventually, you will come across a time when you need to murder one of your characters. Of course for over a hundred years, the best way to do that is shooting them. So, I’m going to show you some websites and stuff that helped me when it came to shooting my characters.

First, there’s the gun. Sometimes you want a specific look for the gun or you need to make sure that the gun can do whatever you want it to do.

So I go to the Internet Movie Firearm Database. It shows you all the guns you’ve seen in movies, shows, and video games.

Also, there is this cool infographic I found on Pinterest from dailyinfograhic.com.

A Bloody Mess

Finally, I share one last link from the Survival Doctor. I like this one because of this small fact: “In most circumstances, you don’t want to remove an implanted bullet. It’s almost impossible to find, and it may actually be corking up a big blood vessel. Thousands of military members live daily with shrapnel in their bodies.” (FTR, This is quoted right from the website.)

Yeah, so these are just some websites that helped me when it came to shooting people. (Again, Fictional People.) There’s plenty more out there and they help make your story more realistic.

Compulsion to Write

It’s a small thought. A notion that managed to creep into your mind. You ponder it a moment and you brain stirs it with knowledge. Soon this trivial thought has become a trigger. It tears open your mind as it floods you with curiosity and opinions.

Every waking moment has become this thought. Even as you smile and speak to others, it is rummaging through you. It slowly builds up its structure, growing beyond that ignorant concept. It has become conflict, setting, and plot.

Worlds are drawn and explored in the depths of your mind. People are born, living and breathing within you. Emotional bonds, physical skills, and the burdens of existence are now yours, yet you do not dismiss them. No, you either rip them in hate or bind them with love, creating heroes and villains.

They fight for their reality, proof of their presence. They wish for their minds, homes, and troubles to be shared. You love them for their flaws and stories, unable to bear their destruction by simply forgetting. You desire their existence more than any of them.

So you grab a pen and paper, computer, or phone. Anything you can use to express them. You start placing word after word. Sentences are constructed and they stack into paragraphs. Days to years can be dedicated to this process.

After you ripped up your mind and allowed this world and its people to be unleashed from it, your story is finally complete. Evidence of these lives, imaginary or not, can now be spread to the world or just yourself. You can breathe easier now that they are in a special place. Now that they have a proper home.

Tips on Finishing that Novel

For a long time, whenever I started a first draft, I would always get stuck on the third chapter and then ditch. Writing your first novel without calling quits is hard. There are times when you just hate the story and want to rip it up and start from scratch. (Or maybe that’s just me.)

I ended up learning the hard way with many incomplete novels scarred on my hard drive. So, here are some basic tips:

1# Make sure you have a real plot. This may seem like a no-brainer. However, many of my story ideas were built from characters and moments that I wanted to see without having any purpose for the story at all. You need a full plot, not parts of it.

2# Make sure you have an ending. Unless you want a “lost” ending, plot out your ending. The whole story has to be slowly building up to the end. You don’t want your ending to feel out of place or forced. Also, unless you’re planning a series, you don’t want to leave it open either. Before you even write a word, you should know how everything is going to end.

3# Don’t fret over the little details. I believe in writing the skeleton of the story first, then going back to add more flesh and details. This way I have the entire story down. I have fewer worries with writers block because I’m only writing what’s important for the plot.

4# Write while you still like it. People change and your perception of your story will change. Those few week where the story is like a blazing flame in your mind, hungry to be scribbled out on paper. Take advantage because this will be the easiest time to write your story. Once the flame is out, the writing process will begin to feel like labor again.

Remember these are just things that helped me when I wrote my story. Every person is different and has their own way of handling things. An idea to consider is write a few short stories for practice. Find out what techinques works best for you to get down that story.

More than Scribbles

Hello, my name is Naylene Rondon. With hard work, I’m going to be self-publishing my first book this year, Native Foreigners. If everything goes to schedule, I should have it out sometime in March or April.

On this blog, I’ll share some tips on how to finish that first novel, the pains of editing, how tea can be your best friend, and the process of self-publishing.

Also, you can read some of my other writing at WATTPAD!