Rob Bignell's Blog, page 248

Five Great Quotations about Business of Writing

���Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self.��� - Cyril Connolly

���There is no such thing as an ���unemployed writer,��� only an unemployed mind.��� - Kevin Cowdall

���Being an author is to have a toe in the creative pool and a foot in the vat of commerce.��� - Fennel Hudson

���Writing is work. It���s also gambling. You don���t get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but essentially you���re on your own. Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don���t whine.��� - Margaret Atwood

���For those who can do it and who keep their nerve, writing for a living still beats most real, grown-up jobs hands down.��� - Terence Blacker

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Four writing prompts: Doubt

Good stories center on the clashing of characters��� goals and motivations. Sometimes a character���s goals and motivations arise from feelings of uncertainty or a lack of conviction. Here are four writing prompts for stories that center on doubt.

Man vs. man
Our protagonist is tapped to help a powerful, secret organization solve a major problem. A man from the organization ��� who he is assigned to work with ��� has serious doubts about the protagonist���s abilities and chances of success? How does the protagonist overcome this adversity so he can solve the problem? What special skill or knowledge does the protagonist posses that makes him indispensible? Why would the man from the organization doubt our protagonist?

Man vs. society
The main character decides the organization he works for is stepping over the line despite its noble goals. How does he come to this decision? How does the organization deal with his objection?

Man vs. God(s)
What if a man who doubts God���s existence still lives in fear of actually having been made in God���s image? That is, he may not be God-fearing, but he is God-haunted. Why does he harbor doubts about God? How does balancing his doubt with his fear affect him, and how does he rectify the two?

Man vs. himself
Our main character possesses serious self-doubt about his artistic abilities (as a painter, a musician, a sculptor, etc.) yet is unable to give up on passion (for doing so means giving up on himself). How does he deal with his self-doubt so that he can actually create? Is his self-doubt, ironically, what propels him to create truly great pieces that show he actually has superior artistic abilities?

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Five Great Quotations about the Pleasure of Writing

���Writing stories is like making love.��� - June Gillam

���When you make music or write or create, it���s really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you���re writing about at the time.��� - Lady Gaga

���I have an idea and a first line - and that suggests the rest of it. I have little concept of what I���m going to say, or where it���s going. I have some idea of how long it���s going to be - but not what will happen or what the themes will be. That���s the intrigue of doing it - it���s a process of discovery. You get to discover what you���re going to say and what it���s going to mean.��� - T.C. Boyle

���If there is no mystery, for the artist, to solve inside of his art, then there���s no point in it. . . . for me, every act of art is the act of solving a mystery.��� - Truman Capote

���...I live through my characters; experiencing every detail of their story as it unfolds gradually and personally within my own creative psyche. I���m like a cat with untold lives, because each new book is my rebirth.��� - Richelle E. Goodrich

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Four writing prompts: Isolation

Good stories center on the clashing of characters��� goals and motivations. Sometimes a character���s goals and motivations arise when a person no longer wants to be separated from someone or others. Here are four writing prompts for stories that center on the fear of isolation.

Man vs. nature
A disaster leaves the main character stranded a long way from civilization. With little hope of rescue, he decides living alone and isolated is worth the risk of a perilous journey back to where he came. How does he succeed at overcomibng the challenges nature throws at him?

Man vs. man
What if two people fall for each other but when the other isn���t ready for a relationship? How do they maintain their ���friendship��� though all of this? What do they learn about themselves from their series of near-misses? What motivates them to keep trying over and over? Can they ever come together into a relationship by story���s end?

Man vs. society
A man loses his job (or perhaps his wife leaves him), but to avoid his neighbors��� shunning, begins a charade that he is still employed (or that the wife is still living there). Why does he believe his neighbors would shun him? What is others begin to suspect he���s lying? Does he ever reveal the truth about his situation?

Man vs. himself
What if our main character, who fears being isolated and alone, keeps getting himself into toxic relationships in which his self-worth actually is diminished? How does he come to feel even more isolated and alone in these relationships? How will he come to realize that true freedom, personal value, and love will come only when he lets go of his fear of being alone?

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Five Humorous Thoughts about Writing

���Writing is like knitting. Stitch after stitch, word by word, and before you know it you have a book...or a jumper!��� - Fusty Luggs

���A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.��� - Thomas Mann

���Authors, he thought. Even the sane ones are nuts.��� - Dan Brown

���There is bad in all good authors: what a pity the converse isn���t true!��� - Philip Larkin

���It takes thirty-three days to write a book--only thirty-three days. remember, writers lie for a living.��� - Darynda Jones

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Four writing prompts: Violence

Good stories center on the clashing of characters��� goals and motivations. Sometimes a character���s goals and motivations arise from witnessing or suffering from another���s brutality. Here are four writing prompts for stories that center on violence.

Man vs. man
Two characters are caught in a situation in which they are pitted against one another in some sort of savage competition. Why are they pitted against one another? What if one of them decides to no longer fight? How does he convince the other to not fight?

Man vs. society
Our main character lives in a setting where violence is rampant. What if he decides he no longer can by being violent as well? How does he arrive at this turning point? With such an attitude, can he survive long in this setting? How does he begin to encourage and change others to be nonviolent?

Man vs. God(s)
A man suffers during horrific acts of violence (e.g. genocide, a political purge in a third world country, revenge by a drug cartel) that causes him to question God���s existence; after all, how could a just God allow such horrors to occur? How does he regain his faith (Perhaps he discovers that without faith, he increasingly behaves in the same ways that those who caused him so much pain?)?

Man vs. himself
The protagonist finds himself in a situation (e.g. an occupying army, a gang, prison) where depravity involving violence is the norm. Unable to walk away from it, how does his conscience wrestle with the horrors he witnesses and even is expected to participate in?

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Five Great Quotations about the Craft of Writing

���Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.��� - Stephen King

���Everything in art depends on execution: the story of a louse can be as beautiful as the story of Alexander. You must write according to your feelings, be sure those feelings are true, and let everything else go hang. When a line is good it ceases to belong to any school. A line of prose must be as immutable as a line of poetry.��� - Julian Barnes

���First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you���ve been to college.��� - Kurt Vonnegut

���...what holds for the most serious kind of fiction will generally hold for junk fiction as well. (Not everyone is capable of writing junk fiction: It requires an authentic junk mind. Most creative-writing teachers have had the experience of occasionally helping to produce, by accident, a pornographer. The most elegant techniques in the world, filtered through a junk mind, become elegant junk techniques.��� - John Gardner

���One idea to a sentence is still the best advice that anyone has ever given on writing.��� - Bill Bryson

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Four writing prompts: Race

Good stories center on the clashing of characters��� goals and motivations. Sometimes a character���s goals and motivations arise from seeking to win a competition. Here are four writing prompts for stories that center on race.

Man vs. nature
The main character must accomplish a goal before impending storm ��� say a hurricane or a blizzard ��� makes that impossible. What is the goal to be achieved and why is it so important? What happens when the main character, with his goal in reach, decides to keep pursuing it despite that the storm arrives?

Man vs. man
Our main character is engaged in a race with an old nemesis, and the winner will be able to prove his worth and gain something of great value. What struggles have the characters had in the past with one another? How might the nemesis underhandedly attempt to prevent the main character from winning?

Man vs. God(s)
What if the main character ��� angry at the world and angry at God ��� decides to enter a dangerous race that he may not be qualified to complete? How does this attempt to prove his anger is justified actually bring him closer to God? Why he is angry at the world and God in the first place?

Man vs. himself
Our protagonist have five minutes to disarm a bomb whose interior he���s entirely unfamiliar with. How does he keep his cool and succeed?

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Five Great Quotations about Writing as Immortality

���If you would not be forgotten, /as soon as you are dead and rotten,/either write things worth reading,/or do things worth the writing.��� - Benjamin Franklin

���Like everyone else, I am going to die. But the words ��� the words live on for as long as there are readers to see them, audiences to hear them. It is immortality by proxy. It is not really a bad deal, all things considered.��� - J. Michael Straczynski

���The writer is important only by dint of the territory he colonizes.��� - Van Wyck Brooks

���If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.��� - Rudyard Kipling

���As writers we intend to make a difference, to alter people���s lives for the greater good. . .this is why we write, to have an impact on society, to put a personal stamp on history���Art and literature are the legacies we leave to succeeding generations. We���ll be forgotten, but our books and essays, our stories and poems can survive us...��� - Lee Gutkind

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Four writing prompts: Zealotry

Good stories center on the clashing of characters��� goals and motivations. Sometimes a character���s goals and motivations arise when he is uncompromising in his religious or political ideas. Here are four writing prompts for stories that center on zealotry.

Man vs. nature
What if to undergo a rite of passage our young protagonist must spend time alone in the wilderness? How does he survive when he is ill prepared to? How does the experience affect his views of the zealots who required this rite and of the views they espouse?

Man vs. man
Our protagonist learns of an assassination plot, but no one takes him seriously, so he takes it upon himself to foil a zealot���s plans. How does he do this? Why do those in charge not take him seriously, and how they actually hinder him from stopping the assassination?

Man vs. society
Our main character commits some seemingly harmless act that makes him the target of zealots. How does he avoid being killed by them? Is there any way he can ever end this situation, given that every zealot he stops becomes a martyr inspiring others to come after him?

Man vs. God(s)
The main character begins a journey that ultimately causes him to be an ambassador of some faith? What if this is a journey that he is reluctant to take? Why would he be reluctant? And what event(s) set this journey in motion and take him along for the ride, though he wishes he could get off the boat?

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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